BDNF in the dentate gyrus is required for consolidation of "pattern-separated" memories.

Authors

Pedro Bekinschtein, Department of Psychology and MRC and Wellcome Trust Behavioural and Clinical Neuroscience Institute, University of Cambridge, Cambridge 23EB, UK & Present address: Instituto de Biología Celular y Neurociencias, Facultad de Medicina, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires C1121ABG, ArgentinaFollow
Brianne A Kent, Department of Psychology and MRC and Wellcome Trust Behavioural and Clinical Neuroscience Institute, University of Cambridge, Cambridge 23EB, UK
Charlotte A Oomen, Department of Psychology and MRC and Wellcome Trust Behavioural and Clinical Neuroscience Institute, University of Cambridge, Cambridge 23EB, UK
Gregory D Clemenson, Laboratory of Genetics, Salk Institute for Biological Studies, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA
Fred H Gage, Laboratory of Genetics, Salk Institute for Biological Studies, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA
Lisa M Saksida, Department of Psychology and MRC and Wellcome Trust Behavioural and Clinical Neuroscience Institute, University of Cambridge, Cambridge 23EB, UK
Timothy J Bussey, Department of Psychology and MRC and Wellcome Trust Behavioural and Clinical Neuroscience Institute, University of Cambridge, Cambridge 23EB, UK

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

11-14-2013

Journal

Cell Rep

Volume

5

Issue

3

First Page

759

Last Page

768

URL with Digital Object Identifier

10.1016/j.celrep.2013.09.027

Abstract

Successful memory involves not only remembering information over time, but also keeping memories distinct and less confusable. The computational process for making representations for similar input patterns more distinct from each other has been referred to as "pattern separation." In this work, we developed a set of behavioral conditions that allowed us to manipulate the load for pattern separation at different stages of memory. Thus, we provide experimental evidence that a brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF)-dependent pattern separation process occurs during the encoding/storage/consolidation, but not the retrieval stage of memory processing. We also found that a spontaneous increase in BDNF in the dentate gyrus of the hippocampus is associated with exposure to landmarks delineating similar, but not dissimilar, spatial locations, suggesting that BDNF is expressed on an "as-needed" basis for pattern separation.

Notes

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

This article was originally published as:

Bekinschtein, P., Kent, B. A., Oomen, C. A., Clemenson, G. D., Gage, F. H., Saksida, L. M., & Bussey, T. J. (2013). BDNF in the dentate gyrus is required for consolidation of "pattern-separated" memories. Cell reports, 5(3), 759–768. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.celrep.2013.09.027

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.